A Tuscan View - from Umbria

Last one standing

There’s this old building.
It has been here since we arrived and for a long time before. It sits, hidden in the middle of a light industrial estate, in a small drive-through town a few miles from here and, despite all the pre-fabricated, non-descript, soulless monstrosities growing up all around it, it has always remained quietly there.

I have been meaning to photograph it, to make it into a sort of photo-essay, for a long time now and kept putting it off for one reason or another, and also because there was a rather high fence all round it. 

Then, last week, things suddenly changed. 

I noticed that the gate was open on Monday, nothing more on Tuesday, but by Wednesday morning someone had parked a bulldozer in the forecourt. It seems that this old boy has to come down to make way for something new.
So, in haste, I had to get myself in there and do my best. I’m not sure what it is about this building; perhaps the squareness, perhaps the fading stucco walls, the sense of what it was (and I still can’t figure that out), perhaps the fact that it is the last one standing, or just that I hoped it would make strong and striking images.

Anyway, as I write this, it’s still hanging on. The ground either side of it is now flat and prepared for something, and it looks even more exposed and under threat than before.

So, I have put a few examples of my (all too hasty) photos in the sidebar. Have a look before it's too late!

tempera

A little while ago we decided to run a course in Tempera painting. This is a traditional technique used extensively in Italy during the Renaissance and, in it's classical form, is called Egg tempera as the powdered pigments are bound together with egg yolks. After about 1500 oil painting took over in Italy and these days tempera has been transformed into what we now call poster paint or Gouache.

There was a wonderful moment in Florence in 1483 when a painting (The Portinari Altarpiece - Adoration of the Shepherds) was carried with much 'pomp' into the city all the way down from the Northern European city of Bruges. It had been painted by the Flemish master Hugo van der Goes in oil paint and it was a revelation.

People queued to marvel at the extraordinary realism and detail of this spectacular altarpiece and, amongst many other things, made particular mention of the dirt visible under the fingernails of the shepherds adoring the Christ child.

 This was a real wake-up call to the painters of Florence who had always thought themselves and their techniques  to be the best in the world and so was also a real threat to the method of tempera painting they used. One artist took up the challenge.

Determined to prove that Florentines were at least as good as the Flemish oil painters, Domenico Ghirlandaio produced an 'Adoration of the Shepherds' in Florentine style and in tempera, but with more than the occasional reference to the rival Flemish painting, including dirt under the fingernails of the shepherds, one of whom is Ghirlandaio himself, with breathtaking realism, stubble and watery eyes, showing us what he can do.

Detail of Ghirlandaio's Adoration, he is the handsome man on the bottom left!

Both paintings are still in Florence, one in the Ufizzi, carefully protected and preserved amongst all the other masterworks of Italy, and Ghirlandaio's in a dark corner of a comparatively small church called Santa Trinita, with a broken light, no entrance charge, no queue and no guard. You just have to walk in and admire.

Anyway, I want to try as many traditional methods as possible, so I went to Arezzo to do a little research into tempera. I can find the eggs myself, but dry powdered pigments and gold leaf may be a little harder to come by!

I found a workshop with a wonderful old man who restores and repairs all sorts of artwork, with paintings and frames piled up against the walls and hanging from the ceiling. So, I made myself a nuisance and tried to get as much information as I could out of him, wandering around the studio, staring at his brushes, pigments, mouldings, powders, pots and tins of strange mixtures of gesso, gold leaf, silver leaf, glues, sizes, boles etc.

He told me that he would be the last of his family to continue in his business as his children had decided not to follow on his line of work.

In another life I would have jumped at the chance to become his (unpaid) apprentice. Not least because his knowledge and his recipes have been so carefully developed over 60 years and, when he goes, a lot goes
with him.

There are a lot of mysteries in those tins and jars.

But of the photos I took that day, one stands out. This one. I could look at it for hours. It is a picture of one part of one wall of his studio and it tells us so much about him, his family, his life and his career. Next week I might just have to go back to ask him a few more questions...

Mad dogs and Englishmen

I’ve been so reluctant to write about the finishing of the building project, the start of the art courses and the beginning of the next part – settling in to a very different routine.

Perhaps I have metaphorically been holding my breath all this time and just praying everything will go well, or perhaps I’ve been too busy to write, but there’s no excuse really.
But however it all has gone (and it seems to have gone very well so far) there is still a need to write it down, and that’s what I will try to do to make up for all the missing posts…starting here.

The hot mid-afternoon, seen from the studio.

Summer has been here for a long while already and the girl’s everlasting holidays are drifting along in the heat, neither of them able to do much homework during these long hot afternoons. In fact they’re not able to do much at all until the cooler evenings gradually re-energise them.

I wish we could teach ourselves to get in to that ‘siesta’ mode, but it seems impossible to recalibrate our body clocks to take advantage of a ‘cheeky sleep’ in the middle of the day. So I find myself out there, with my mad dog, doing precious little in the sun.

The girls have gone all 'euro-cool' these Summer days!

However, we feel like we’re at the end of the hard, ugly bit, so my thoughts turn to our still-toiling neighbours, getting up each day to face the cement mixer. They started before we did, and they’re not finished yet, but there’s a good reason for that – they’re doing it all themselves.

And you’ve got to respect that.

La Foce

For anyone struggling to make some kind of garden out of the baked clay soil of this area, the gardens at La Foce are an inspiration.

But it's not just the gardens that appeal to me, it's the spirit of Iris Origo which seems to have seeped into the old stucco walls of the villa.

You can sense her quiet, overseeing presence everywhere and, looking out at the incredible view from the gardens over the surreal and almost lunar landscape of the Val d'Orcia, you feel the passion and love that she must have felt for this wild and beautiful countryside.

On 4 March 1924, Iris married the charming Antonio Origo. They moved together to their new estate at La Foce, near Chianciano Terme in the Province of Siena. It was in a state of bad repair; the land around it arid and barren and the tenant farmers nearing starvation. But with great insight and a feeling for the landscape, and after much hard work, care and attention, they succeeded in transforming it.

Now the gardens are a truly magnificent mix of Italian formal garden and English country garden, gradually loosening up to meet with the surrounding wooded wilderness. I love a bit of box hedging, and the smell of an 80 year old wisteria in full bloom...

During the Second World War, the Origos remained at La Foce and looked after refugee children, who were housed there. Following the surrender of Italy, and the confused mayhem that swept through the country, Iris also sheltered or assisted many escaped Allied prisoners of war. Sometimes up to 30 people a day would arrive at La Foce; all on foot, many starving and ill, all seeking to make their way through the German lines, or simply to survive.

Her intellligent and level headed account of this time is recorded in her war diary, 'War in the Val D'Orcia'. It is one of my favourite books about this area.

As part of our recent Botanical Illustration courses we have visited Iris's gracious gardens at La Foce and it's a trip that really is balm for the soul, both uplifting and inspiring. So, with thanks to the lovely ladies on our recent Botanical Course 2nd to 9th May, I have included some photos of our wonderful day out there.

The best thing I ate:

Fresh Garlic

At the moment, bunches of fresh, wet garlic are heaped on the market stalls, their skin is moist and beautiful, blushed with purple and pale green and, as the garlic gets older, the skin drys to the palest ivory and becomes dry and brittle. The flavour changes too.

New garlic is mild and sweet, the plump cloves beneath the skin are the brightest white and full of juice. The taste is subtle and, for those with no romantic rendezvous lined up, it is delicious eaten raw, sliced thinly into a fresh green salad. In fact I would encourage you to convince you lover to partake with you in an orgy of fresh garlic-eating - that way you can enjoy the fleeting moment together. Or rub a cut clove over a toasty piece of griddled bread, drizzle over the ubiquitous olive oil and enjoy the simplest form of bruschetta.

Long time no blog

Goodness me, it’s been a month.  I have no excuse except that real life seems to have stepped up a pace since the art courses started.  Life at the moment seems like one big learning curve as each of the courses runs for the first time.   It’s an exciting period, but not without a bit of nail biting too.

Now that the overall renovations of the apartments and studio are finished (nearly), it’s the details that begin to come into focus.  This corkboard has been re-commissioned to organise our keys.  My father made this board for me years ago out of the corks left over from bottles of wine that he had drunk, he only used the ones that he felt were particularly memorable, either because the wine or the company he drank with had moved him. He made one for me and one for my sister. Of the few things I have that were my dad’s, this is one of the most precious. The corks in the centre are from bottles of Cava that we drank together, to celebrate the stuff that families celebrate, each other.  Now, it’s in use everyday and I think my dad would have liked that.

This is another detail that shouldn’t go unnoticed, the amount of wonderful artwork that has been produced in the studio, by visitors on the art courses.  This table full of work is by one of our first ‘students’, I love looking at all these vibrant images and somehow it makes sense of what we have been doing for the last two and a half years.

The other thing that is prevalent around here at the moment is the sheer greenness of the landscape, so green and full of sap, it makes me want to sing and make soup.

Best thing I ate;

To celebrate the full on juicy lushness that is Umbria at this time of year, I made this verdant soup for the students on our recent botanical illustration course.  They weren’t complaining.

The idea of this light soup is to keep it very fresh and green I like to make it, and eat it, within the hour as that is when the colour really zings.  The clean, sweet taste of the zucchini (courgette) works really well with a pungent splash of basil oil, and a crunch of charred bread from the griddle.

Zuppa di Zucchini con Basilico or Courgette Soup with Basil

For the soup (serves 6)

1.5kg firm, shinny skinned medium sized zucchini, trimmed
Olive oil, large glug
50g butter
3 gloves garlic peeled
1ltr good vegetable stock, a cube will do
Sea salt and black pepper

For the basil oil

1 large bunch of fresh basil
150ml olive oil
Sea salt

Soup
 Heat the olive oil and butter in a large stock-pot and sweat the garlic gently without colouring it.  Meanwhile chop the zucchini cross ways into coins and add to the pot, cover with the stock and bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes or until the courgettes are just tender.  Blend the soup with a hand help blender, until smooth and green.  Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to your taste.

Oil
Take your bunch of basil and remove any coarse stems, puree the basil with the olive oil and a large pinch of sea salt until smooth and intense dark green.

Serve the soup with a large splash of the basil oil floating on top and a slice of coarse country bread charred on the griddle.  Perfetto.

Quite a blow

The last week or two have been a bit hectic around here as our first group of artists arrived.  The last minute panic to get things ready gave way to a steady rhythm of activity as the workshop got underway.  It seems, at last, we are beginning to do what we came here to do which is, of course, run painting holidays.  After all the graft that has gone before, this seems somehow incredible to me.  There is still, however, so much to be done that it seems there will be no time for resting on our laurels, at least not in this lifetime. 

The most amazing thing to me was how the studio was transformed by the addition of the students. What they brought to what is, in fact, just a large, light space was all the atmosphere and vibrancy that made the place hum.

The start of the art courses seems to have shaken things up around here and change is definitely in the air, good change.
Despite my being one of those irritating people who appears to suffer from unusually high self-esteem, I have been left reeling from the fact that my eldest daughter, recently and at surprisingly close range, mistook me for one of the builders.  It’s not that I have anything against the builders, but still it was quite a blow.

The last two years of living in rural Italy on what can only be described as a building site seems to have turned me from someone who used to look like a relatively well put together urbanite into, well, let’s be honest, someone who looks like a builder.

A Winter spent huddled by the stufa mainlining Gorgonzola hasn’t helped me much either and after an honest self-appraisal I think I have to call time on this particular look, it’s obviously not working for me anymore.  Spring is here and I need to ‘re-glamourise’. 

This afternoon I quit the building site, donned my Ipod and my running shoes and hit the white roads.  I haven’t been running for a couple of weeks and the first kilometer felt so bad I almost gave up but, after a while, the music got to me and the old euphoria began to kick in.   Anyone who runs regularly will tell you that it’s very addictive, in a good way. I came home on a high with plans for extensive surgery and a whole new wardrobe, or at least to go running regularly from now on and to stop wearing marito’s old clothes in public. 

It occurs to me while writing this that if you ever see a woman in the supermarket, here in Italy, with dusty hair and paint splattered clothes, or a frazzled looking mother covered in cement at the school gates you can be 99 per cent certain she’s not Italian. They just don’t do ‘sloppy’, in fact most of the mothers at the school pick-up could give Victoria Beckham a run for her money.

The best thing I ate;

You would think that given my new regime I would be nibbling on a leaf or something, but actually I’m back on the bruschette.  My latest addiction is bruschetta with cannellini beans and rosemary.  There is something wholesome and comforting about creamy cannellini beans, here they are mashed into a coarse puree and perked up with the pungent oily taste of rosemary, a spritz of balsamic vinegar adds a slightly acid bite and the drizzle of good virgin olive oil transports it to sublime.  Top lunch-time treat of the moment.

Bruschetta with Cannellini beans and Rosemary

1 tin or jar good quality cannellini beans, drained
Large spring rosemary
Balsamic vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
2 cloves Garlic
Coarse country style bread, sliced

First grill your slices of bread. While they are still hot drizzle them with olive oil and rub them with a cut clove of garlic.

Pull all the spikey leaves from the rosemary spring and chop very, very finely until almost a powder.  Fry one clove of chopped garlic in a little olive oil but be careful not to let it colour.  Add the drained beans and continue to cook for about 5 minutes, add the rosemary, a little more oil and season well with salt and pepper and a spritz of balsamic vinegar.  Mash everything together using the back of a wooden spoon until you have a coarse puree.  Heap the beans onto the grilled bread and drizzle with more of the olive oil.  This is delicious with a sharp green salad on the side and a glass of rough red wine to wash it down.

 

an uncontrollable urge

Italians believe that Spring begins on the morning of March 21st, the same way that they believe that as soon as August is over you need to begin to wrap up warm. It makes sense, it puts the seasons in their place.
I, on the other hand, believe that as soon as you feel that first burst of sunshine, the type that gives your face a fleeting reminder of last Summer, Spring has arrived. It’s irrational, a little desperate, but great for the soul.

The light is the difference. Anyone who paints, photographs or just appreciates their surroundings, knows that light is everything and so, today, I got the uncontrollable urge to get the camera out and start photographing again.

 I’m trying out a new technique, something introduced to me by a young American girl, Trisha, who was staying with some friends. It’s a great lesson, especially to a teacher, that often the best ideas come from  students prepared to try something different.

 This technique isn’t strictly new and is called ‘Through the viewfinder’ photography, defined as ‘taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera.’
Sounds complicated, but in reality it’s just a little fiddly knowing what to do with two cameras and only two hands.
 Anyway, I have made a tentative start to what looks like an exciting idea to pursue and I will pursue it, safe in the knowledge that a little Photoshop manipulation (colour and contrast) is also allowed. Fun, fun, fun!

The stupidest thing I did today;
Well, I was supposed to be painting the studio doors, amongst my list of a million other things to do, when I got this uncontrollable urge…

Plein air

There's a lot to be said for taking a break, recharging our flagging batteries, and getting a little distance and perspective on things. Our New Year break was to see some very old friends who have made their home in the South of France.

Italy may be the home of Michelangelo and the Renaissance greats, but the South of France was the part of the world favoured in the 19th Century by Van Gogh and Cezanne, the 'father' of Modern Art.
Simply driving around the beautiful scenery, with it's colours just as striking in Winter as in the height of Summer, the paintings just pop out at you. It is an overwhelmingly beautiful place.

Isle sur la Sorgues

There is Mont Ventoux, painted by the artists who chose to break with tradition and paint for the first time 'en plein air', and famously climbed by Petrarch one morning in 1336 'just to watch the sun rise'.

Old door in Maubec, Provence

There is the imposing mountain range of the Luberon, changing quite dramatically as each hour passes, and there are the old towns and villages of Provence, painted in colours now beautifully faded and bleached by the sun.

The Luberon

But perhaps most of all, New Year is about old friends, and nothing recharges my batteries as fast as they do.

The stupidest thing I did today;

On the drive home, I began making a list of 'Great films I have never seen for one reason or another', and it is beginning to get long and a little embarassing, it includes Star Wars, Casablanca, ET, Gandhi, Schlindler's List, Bridget Jones' Diary, Nixon, Clockwork Orange, Annie Hall, West Side Story... 

Don't laugh, try it yourself.

An old chestnut

I read last week that the famous bronze David by Donatello has finally been finished after an 18 month restoration involving the use of lasers normally employed to treat glaucoma. A normal 'mechanical' restoration had not been possible when an x-ray in 2006 discovered the presence of precious and delicate gold leaf on parts of the statue.

The forward-thinking curators of the Bargello museum decided that it would be interesting for the public to be able to see the work in progress and so the whole thing has been on show in the museum as it progressed. I'm not suggesting that the watchful eyes of the public had anything to do with it, but the restoration finished exactly on time, and the resulting statue is now back on display in it's full glory.

The painted ceiling at the Bargello, Florence

I had been to see it many times previously and it is a wonderful piece of work but, many years ago, when it was kept at the Ufizzi, it had been covered with a mixture of oil, wax and pigment to make it look consistent with all the other dark bronzes in their collection. Now that this grimy layer has been carefully removed, it has become clear that David had been intended to be in a light, polished bronze. Now, back to it's former glory, it takes your breath away.

As the director of the Bargello put it, “he is incomparably more beautiful now than ever before, even though it would seem impossible”. I know it's her museum, but she's right.

Another stunning ceiling, this time on the covered loggia.

And maybe I shouldn't grumble, especially given the wonderful other works of art available at this seminal museum for just 4 euros, but I do have a couple of slight gripes.

The museum has tried something new in terms of a restoration. Rather than turning David back into what he would have looked like by replacing the lost gold leaf it has, instead, recreated a second version standing just behind the original. It has been made to appear new, as the Medici would have wanted to see it, in the courtyard of their palace a stone's throw from the Duomo in Florence. There is bright, shiny gold leaf all over David's hair and sandals and all over Goliath's helmet. It is also on a rather elaborate plinth, a little higher than the original, probably at the height it was supposed to be.

I can see what they are trying to do, the intention is to inform and to educate, but I really wish it wasn't there. The visual impact of the original David is enough. You walk into this wonderful, majestic room on the first floor of the museum and are drawn straight to it, 580 years old and perfect. Now, instead, there is a visual confusion of the two and other visitors to the museum were asking each other in embarassed whispers which was the real one!

My other gripe is about photography. It's an old chestnut, but it does upset me when, in a museum of bronze and marble sculpture which cannot possible be damaged by photographs, you are told off for trying. I get particularly annoyed as seeing and appreciating sculpture is all about going around it, seeing the forms and shapes from all it's angles, and choosing your own favourite, not just the one the postcard photo guy in 1965 thought you should have.

That's why I have nothing of the beautiful new David, just a couple of shots of the ceilings. taken whilst pretending to put my lens cap back on...

Anyway, I suppose you're just going to have to take my word for it and put it on your list of must-sees the next time you're in Florence. It's worth every cent.

The stupidest thing I did today;
Got caught (and told off) trying to take a photograph of a statue.

meme - the movie

Rupert (the hero) has done his job in record time, and our next job is to put it onto the website but, before we do, it needs to pass the ultimate test - blogworld!

All the feedback for the website was so helpful and, as this is my first (and probably my last) appearance on film, it seems right to pass it by you guys first.

We dodged rainstorms and pestered the butcher, we struggled through muddy fields with a tripod and a dog, I messed up my lines, my dialogue is a little clumsy at times and I know it looks like the biggest meme in blog history - but we needed to do it and so, here it is (if you can spare 4 minutes and 32 seconds)...be kind!

The stupidest thing I did today;
It might well be posting this...